Two part-time nursing home aides, 19-year-old Brianna Broitzman and 18-year-old Ashton Larson, were charged Monday for abusing elderly patients at Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn. Four other aides were charged as juveniles for refusing to report the abuse and two others were investigated but not charged.

Broitzman and Larson, according to the criminal complaints “spat in residents’ mouths, poked and groped their breasts and genitals and at times taunted them until they screamed,” writes the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The allegations were first made public in an August report by the Minnesota Department of Health, which had begun investigating claims of abuse at the home in May. One home employee said in the report, “The ones they were targeting were those that have Alzheimer’s so bad, that they wouldn’t be able to say it or remember.”

The girls were charged with assault, abuse of a vulnerable adult by a caregiver, abuse of a vulnerable adult with sexual contact, disorderly conduct and failing to report suspected maltreatment. All are gross misdemeanors and the penalty ranges up to a year in prison, though they “most likely will face suspended jail sentences and probation,” Freeborn County Attorney Craig Nelson told the Star Tribune.

Though few cases receive as much media attention as the Good Samaritan case has, abuse of nursing home patients is a widespread problem in the United States. Abuse, according to the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform (NCCNHR), includes physical and psychological abuse, neglect and misappropriation of patients’ property or funds.

There is also a wider crisis of elder abuse, which affects an estimated 2.1 million elderly Americans every year, according to the American Psychological Association’s Public Interest Directorate Mission. It also says that, “Recent research suggests that elders who have been abused tend to die earlier than those who are not abused, even in the absence of chronic conditions or life threatening disease.”

The National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) is a government resource center dedicated to preventing elder abuse. It explains what elder abuse is and how to identify it, with a hotline for reporting elder abuse. It also links to federal resources for nursing home patients.

The findingDulcinea Web Guide to Long-Term Care includes resources for finding and choosing nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. It also includes resources for caring for sick or elderly patients at home.